The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-01-14

through the series of proXimate and see
ondary causes before its curiosity with re-
gard to first cause can be satisfied. 1.-THE
child asks me "wbo makes the trees |
! should simply answer that s'trees are not
made, they grow" And if the child asks
''who makes the rivers | should say,
''the rivers are not made, they flow from a
| fountain" And what makes the foun-
tain @ ''the waters under the EARTH or,
| ''the rains from above, they make the foun-
tain" ''What makes the rains % ''The
sea. Go on, give it secondary causes
without end until it has satisfied its desire
| for information. what makes the
| stars ?" The stars are not made" II it is
very young child should invent fable,
and say the stars are the children of the
] sun. If it is an older child, | should say
they are fiery balls thrown off from the
sun and now whirling about it. And so. by
| giving simple answers to the child's ques-
tions, you will satisfy and gradually also
give it dim presentiment of the vastness
of the world in which it is placed, instead
of allowing the idea to grow up in its mind
that the universe is simply big man.
The second reason why many parents
think that it is necessary for them to in
troduce the God idea is that the child is
often tempted to do wrong when no one is
present, hence it is necessary to tell the child
even when papa and mamma are not there
and when no one is present there is an eye
that sees. The German poet, Richter, has
embodied that sentiment in very pretty
poem. He tells us of teacher who
had number of disciples, and one day, TO
test them, lie gave each fledgling bird
| and said go and kill this little thing in
place where no one sees you,' and they all
went and did as he told them except the
youngest who came back with the bird in
his hand; amt the master asked him why
hast thou alone Of all my disciples DISC
beyed?' "No, master. | have not DISC
beyed have done as thou hast hidden
me; for thou saidst should go to a plac
and kill this bird where no one sees me,
but | found not the place where no one
sees me, for wherever go there is an eye
that sees"
I ut think the poet was, after all, mis-
taken. This young disciple was not kept
back really by the eye that sees from with
ont, but by the voice that warns from with
in. The ''eye that sees" is a fiction.
There is no such eye, and after a time the
child finds out that there is no eye that
sees. But the voice within that warns,
the voice of conscience-that is solemn
and eternal fact, and the child will never
find out that it is a fictien. 1t was the
kindness, tie love- the tender humanity of
this young man that deferred him from kill
ing the innocent thing-his conscience de-
TERED him.
The eye that sees is fiction, I repeat.
We do not need it, What we need to en-
force Upon the child is that even when its
father and mother are not present there is
power within that must be obeyed. We
need to strengthen its appreciation of the
fact of its own conscience, and teach it to
obey its conscience.
Another kind of teaching is to appeal to
a motive of fear and to tell the child not to
do what is wrong because there is an eye
that sees, which is just like saying not to
do what is wrong because there is an officer
of the law that will strike you. No,
think that all this mode of reasoning and
dealing with children is below the plane
of morality, and even in regard 10 this
young child whose conscience is not de-
veloped and the very little ones, | should
say that the eye that sees need not be in
troduced, for if parents will only insist that
the child shall invariably obey them when
they are present, there is no fear but what
it will obey, even when the parent is not
present, because habit of obedience is
thus generated and it will work its own eff
fects. We must not underrate the immense
Importance of habit We must as parents
deliberately set about to generate habits;
and the reason why so many parents are
SO helpless with regard to the secret trans
actions of their children is because they are
not sufficiently firm, and because they al
low IIt Cuilu W piSocASSs
and of course the child will take the first
opportunity of disobeying when the parents
back is turned Make each child obey;
ask nothing but what is reasonable, but
insist upon its implicit and exact ODE
dience when you are present Create the
habit Of obedience in it; and then, too,
there is a further point which is i'm
portant, that the right relations of love
and confidence must ssbsist between
the parent and the child. If the child
makes the father and mother its con-
fidants, then it will feel impelled to
reveal the secret transactions OF its little
life. When it has done something that is
wrong in the parents absence, when the
parent takes the child up in his or her
arms and dwells upon it with fond glance,
the good child, feeling that it has disobey-
| ed. is mpelled to tell the story of its trans
erosion; it feels itself unworthy of the
! love Of father and mother, and it makes a
| clean breast of its little sins before it allows
itself to be enfol,ied in the parents arms.
| have seen in very young children the
working of this metive, and am quite
| sure of what | say